Author: nayelyadelphafoundation

Apologies for my absence, as promised I am back to continue our story

And so we left the hospital without our baby………
I’m not sure if we spoke on the way to get Paisley, I don’t think we did.

I thought seeing her would help in some way, I was wrong, we were so pleased to see her and hold her and kiss her but my heart sank at the reality of what we had left at the hospital. Paisley looked like Boris once, we didn’t see it because she was safe in my womb but she did look like that once yet Boris will never grow to look anything like Paisley did when we first met her, that destroys me, I want to know him and his personality, I wanted him, I wanted all of my children to be alive and well, I wanted the mad rush of too many children in a 3 bed house, the noise the clutter the love and the laughter, I wanted it all.

We arrived at mum’s and went in for a quick coffee, I don’t remember much, I was so out of it from the oromorph and lack of sleep. Nathan’s brother was there, he’d been helping look after Paisley (I say helping look after her I mean helping her get up to mischief) Paisley was happy to see us and jabbering away about what she’d been up to, I just wanted to hold her and cry but that wouldn’t have been fair on her (also I don’t do public displays of emotion, I’m a very private person) as well as I can remember we had a cuppa and went home and off to bed, I wanted Paisley to sleep in with us, I was so scared that something might happen to her but again it wouldn’t be fair on her so she went to her bed and we went to ours and despite being so knackered we still had to have the telly on to sleep.

And so it began, it’s time to start life without our baby, it feels impossible but tomorrow we have to get up, squash our heartbreak and start getting ready for Londyn’s birthday and Christmas. I honestly don’t know how we’ll do it but we have to for the other children.

I still can’t do it, I can’t even bring myself to write a half decent blog. I hope you can be patient with me and continue to follow our journey once I get the strength to continue writing it.

Today I will be taking some medication to try and help with the anxiety I will also be using distract techniques and breathing exercises. This may take a few days to work but I promise you that once I’m back in control of things I will be back to continue our journey.

I’d like to thank everyone of you who reached out to me after yesterday’s blog, the support really was overwhelming, I had privet messages, comments and even people taking time out of their day to stop and ask how I am. Myself and my husband really appreciate your support and understanding, we will never be able to express just how much this means to us and how much it’s helping us on our journey of grief so from the bottom of our hearts, Thank you! Xx

Apologies to everyone who is following our journey, once again my grief has swept me away. Today it’s presenting itself in mass anxiety, I fear everything and can’t quite catch my breath – like I’m stuck in the ocean with waves crashing all around me and I’m desperately trying to breathe between the waves just to stay alive! It’s Paisley’s birthday tomorrow and I think that’s adding to it, it was coming up to Londyn’s birthday when the baby was born, it was also 17 years ago that I had my miscarriage, I think it’s all just a bit much and so for the fear of pushing myself over the edge and giving myself a heart attack (I’m not even kidding, these are the fears and thoughts I live with everyday) I won’t be writing part 22 today. I need to let the storm pass and the sea settle, the rational side of my brain knows that I’ll be ok but today the irrational scared side is much stronger and so for the sake of my children and my sanity I’m having a day of from reliving it all. I will be back, I will continue to share our baby’s journey and I hope you will all understand and continue to follow the story, you have no Idea how much strength and comfort I get from knowing you’re all reading this, knowing you all want to know our baby! So thank you, so so much! 💕💕💕

Now that Londyn has met the baby it’s time to let the rest of the world know we’d had the baby, I knew we had to do it, but how? How do you tell the world you’ve had your baby at 16+3 born sleeping? I was dreading it but even more I was dreading having to tell people in person so this was the best way to do it, I wrote a post and let social media do the hard work for me! And now we wait for the Chaplin.

I don’t know what time the Chaplin returned but she did and we discussed our wishes, we asked if we’d be able to postpone the funeral until the gender results came back as we’d like to name the baby, she said that they can only hold the baby in the mortuary for a curtain time but she would apply for an extension as we had valid reasons for doing so. We told her that we would like the baby cremated and for the service to be done at the hospital. She said she would be in touch with us after Christmas so we could go and layout exactly what we wanted, songs, poems etc.

Next we had to see the mental health midwife, again I have no clue what time she came. I sat and held Boris for some of the time but this was difficult as I’d not slept for over 30 hours and I’d given birth in that time aswell, they were still giving me oromorph and that made me sleepy but I still couldn’t sleep and I couldn’t hold Boris for long as I was too drowsy.

The MH midwife came, she said that they wanted me to be assessed by the psychiatric team at the hospital due to my mental state but there wouldn’t be anyone in until tomorrow so we’d have to stay another night. Nathan and I discussed this and he said he couldn’t stay another night, especially as Boris wouldn’t be there, he needed to be with Paisley, I couldn’t stay there alone, that would have made me worse! We asked if we could go home and come back first thing in the morning but that wasn’t an option, to be seen by their team I had to be admitted. I couldn’t stay in that room without my baby on my own if I had they would have ended up putting me in a secure unit, I just wouldn’t have coped so I had no choice but to go home without being seen.

I wasn’t ready to go yet though, I wasn’t ready for them to take Boris yet, we sat with him some more. We talked and tried to decide on poems and songs, we had Freya Ridings, lost without you but we needed to choose hyms and possibly another song. We decided we wanted all things bright and beautiful, this had been sung at both of the girls christenings and at our wedding so we think of it as a family hym. That was as far as we got.

It was dark and I was worried that Boris was getting too warm, I’d signed for him to have a post mortem so I wanted him to be in the best possible condition, they’d already told us that the process would be delayed due to it being so close to Christmas, it was going to be the 27th December before they even took the baby to Bristol!

I buzzed for the midwife to come and get him. “He’s ready to go to bed now” I said, she went to check that the mortuary were ready. While she was gone Nathan said goodbye, he said he couldn’t stay and watch them take him so he went into the bathroom and closed the door. I tucked Boris into bed, I took the blanket he’d been in since he was born and wrapped him up in a fresh clean one. I kissed his beautiful face as many times as I could fit in and told him I’d come back and visit soon, that we love him all the 8s and we miss him just as much. Then she came, one last kiss before he went………. I stood and watched as she walked out of the room………. Then Nathan came out of the bathroom and we just stood holding eachother, sobbing our broken hearts out.……..

At 8am our alarms went off, we needed to call Gary before he got Londyn ready for school. The midwife came in and introduced herself and asked if we wanted any breakfast.
I don’t remember her name, but I sensed that we had been lucky again, she seemed very friendly. I called Gary and spoke to Londyn, she was so excited that the baby was here, Gary said he would bring her down after he’d taken his girlfriends daughter to school but he couldn’t stick around all day as they had their health visitors appointment today (his girlfriend is pregnant). When the midwife came in with our breakfast we told her that Londyn was coming in to meet the baby and asked her if she could arrange for the Chaplin to come and bless the baby whilst Londyn was there but we didn’t want to talk to her about the arrangements until after Londyn had left, she went off to make a phonecall to arrange it.

We had breakfast and started talking about what we wanted to happen next, having already signed for the post mortem we knew we would definitely be finding out the baby’s gender so in light of that I said if possible I didn’t want the funeral until we knew 100% if Boris was a girl or a boy. Nathan agreed with this and also said that he would like the baby to be cremated as he didn’t like the idea of the baby being stuck in one place, I completely agreed. Although due to the gestational age we could have buried the baby in a plant pot in our garden if we’d wanted to but I didn’t like the Idea of Boris being outside all the time, I wanted him in the house with us where he belonged and out of the cold. So that’s one decision made next one is what happens with the ashes? I didn’t want them scattered, I wanted them in an urn in our house so we could show the baby the world – Nathan felt the same another decision done!

I’m holding Boris whilst we’re having this conversation, his skin has taken the print from his blanket, I rolled him onto his other side to make him more comfortable. The midwife returned to give me more oromorph, it makes me very sleepy so I gave Boris a kiss and put him back to bed.

Gary called, he’s here with Londyn, I went with the midwife to the front desk to meet her. I was very unsteady on my feet. Gary looked so awkward, like he didn’t know what to do or say. I asked Londyn one more time are you sure you want to do this, “yes, definitely” she smiled and off we went back to the room, she came in eyes scanning desperately trying to find the baby. I sat her down and told her that she could hold the baby but she had to hold him in his blanket and she has to go very gentle with his skin, she nodded “ok, where is he?” She asked. I picked up his cot and moved him to her. She smiled so proud, “he’s beautiful mummy” she said, “hello Boris, I’m one of your sisters and I’m sorry you died but I think you can still hear me?” She said softly. “I love you Boris, you’re so cute!” With that the Chaplin arrived, it was Julia, “hello you must be Londyn!” She said. Londyn asked me if she could hold the baby so I sat her in-between Julia and I, Julia started the blessing. I won’t lie, I don’t actually remember what it involved but I do remember she’d printed up a little order of service sheet with Londyn’s name in it. It’s these little details that made such a difference! Once the blessing was finished Julia left and told us to contact her once we are ready to talk.

Londyn asked me if I could get some photos of her and Boris so she will never forget and then it was time for her to go. She kissed her finger and put it on the baby’s cheek, “I love you Boris and I will never forget you, you are an angel now!” She whispered. Then Nathan took the baby from her and she said goodbye and I took her back to Gary. I told him I would call later to check how she was and to keep a close eye on her which of course I already knew he would. They left and I went back to the room to wait for Julia to come back……………

To be continued…..

We have borrowed these clippings from @sandscharity because we would like to share our viewpoints and to hear some of yours. ❤️❤️LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS BELOW❤️❤️

Simply saying sorry can help when someone is feeling isolated?
I have to disagree and the more I hear that 5 letter word the more I disagree. It doesn’t help – its something someone says because they can’t think of anything else. Because society dictates that is how we deal with bereaved individuals.
But why? Why do you feel the need to say sorry? What did you do? Did you harm my unborn child?

Another one of these clippings suggests asking how we are. This is probably a better way to approach us. We may tell you how we feel, what we are angry about, why we are crying, why we have done certain things or why we are acting a certain way.
Asking how someone is doing does help a little bit.
But only if you are prepared to listen. Don’t ask if you don’t really want to know. That is worse than not asking at all.

If you don’t know what to say then let us know that. Generally we have a lot to say so we can fill in the gaps. Who knows we might even be able to hold a conversation with you. If you are really attentive then you may realise that we are also human beings and are able to interact with you on a variety of levels.

Still December 19th 2018.
It must have been getting on for 23:30 when Sue popped back in to see that we were ok, I was just sat at the edge of the bed, crying and talking to Boris, so perfect, so beautiful. How did this happen, how does a baby’s heart just stop? “Would you like to talk to the doctor about what happens next or do you want to leave it until the morning?” She asked. Nathan said we would talk to the doctor now, he knew he wanted a post mortem done as we’d already discussed it, I was unsure and needed more information. She gently said to me as I sat ignoring the world around me, “just remember Emileen, he’s your baby, you can get him out and hold him as much as you want” I did want to, more than anything but I was so scared that if I kept getting him out he would deteriorate and I needed to keep him safe for his sister to meet him! I done what I do best when I can’t handle a situation and I zoned out so I couldn’t engage with her, I could still hear what she was saying but it was muffled and I couldn’t respond. “Why don’t you lay on the bed with him?” I heard her say, in my head I answered but whether I actually did or not I can’t tell you, in my head I said, “no, co-sleeping is not allowed, I might roll on the baby and hurt it!” I hadn’t gone mad, I knew the baby had died but I still worried, I didn’t want the baby left alone because I didn’t want him to be scared, I was nervous when I held him, incase I hurt him, I needed him to have a blanket because despite the fact he was sleeping on what was essentially an ice mattress I didn’t want him to get cold and I kept repositioning him because he looked uncomfortable!

I’ll never forget the feel of his skin against my lips as I kissed him, I’ll never forget the way he smelt or the touch of his delicate skin. So perfect, so beautiful. 10 of the tiniest fingers and 10 of the tiniest toes I have ever seen. How does this happen, how does a baby’s heart just stop??

A lady with glasses came to discuss the post mortem with us, there’s 3 types we could have done, one where they just look at my bloods and examine the baby, one where they do my bloods, examine the baby and take some tissue samples or a full post mortem there they operate on the baby and check all the organs tissues and bloods. She said that most of the time there’s no reason for a baby to die and it’s “just one of those things” what she means is medicine isn’t advanced enough to always find the reason, of course there’s a reason, baby’s don’t just die. So basically what I’m hearing is that even if I let then cut my beautiful baby up they still might not find out why this happened! She left us alone to discuss it for a while. Nathan said he needed to know, if there was a chance we could find out why this has happened then he needed to try, Londyn needed to know, the question she has repeatedly asked me since the day I told her is why? Why did Boris die? I sat and gazed at our beautiful baby, I don’t want them to cut you up but my family need to know! What was I supposed to do. I told Nathan I didn’t want the post mortem that the results were irrelevant, nothing could explain why our baby didn’t make it but I could see how much he needed it and so I said I needed to ask a few questions about what it would involve and how it would be performed and as long as I didn’t have to sign for it then I wouldn’t stop him from signing.

The lady came back, I asked my questions and she assured me that the baby would be treated with the same respect as anyone else and that the people who perform post mortems on babies so tiny have had special training so they can do what they need to and then stitch baby back up as seamlessly as possible, so I agreed that Nathan could do what he needed. I still didn’t want it done and so I didn’t want to know anymore about the procedure. She went and got the forms, “if you could both sing here?” She said, “wait, what? Can’t he just sign? He is the dad!” I said. “No I’m afraid we need both of you to sign!” She replied.
This is not what we had agreed! I don’t want this why do I have to sign, he didn’t have to sign for me to take that stupid pill to start the process of induction! This is not fair, he has as many rights to our baby as I do, he’s the dad so why isn’t his signature enough!?
I had no choice so through floods of tears I signed, Nathan kept apologiseing, it wasn’t his fault, I knew that. He and Londyn needed this, I’d already failed them and Boris by not keeping him safe, I couldn’t fail them again.

This lead us into the next day, 00:40 I was feeling increasingly faint, Sue came and done my OBS everything seemed ok but due to the way I was feeling and the fact that I’d lost over a litre of blood they decided to give me IV fluids.

In the next hour my anxiety grew, the pump on the fluids started to alarm I was convinced that if they didn’t stop it then air would get into my vain and kill me, Nathan buzzed them I sat and held the baby, Nathan held me, they came in and turned off the alarm and left us to be together as a family. At 03:45 the fluids had completed, they disconnected the line, by this time my anxiety was through the roof, I kept telling them something wasn’t right, I was going to die and leave my girls behind, they kept assuring me that everything was ok and I wasn’t going to die, that’s what they said when I told them something wasn’t right with the pregnancy, they didn’t listen then and Boris died, if I couldn’t get them to listen now then I would die too! I was so scared, maybe I was wrong maybe it wasn’t me who was in danger? I don’t know but something wasn’t right. I couldn’t breathe, I had such a crushing pain in my chest, it’s a blood clot! I’m going to die from a blood clot. I can’t die I can’t make Christmas any worse for the girls than its already going to be, Paisley is too young, if I die now she won’t even remember me, she wont know how much I love her and how will Londyn cope? She’s already hurting so much oh my god I can’t breathe, I’m going to die! Wait what if it’s not me? What if one of the girls is in danger? What if it’s Paisley’s blood sugars? Wendy doesn’t even know how to give her solution, we didn’t tell her, I’m a terrible mother, I don’t deserve children! Oh god please, don’t let it be the girls, I can’t lose another one, they’re too perfect, this world needs them please don’t let it be them, take me if you must but not my girls! I still can’t breathe there’s a doctor standing at the end of my bed, I’m crying so hard I can’t see her and my head’s in such a fit I don’t have a clue what she’s saying, sue is sat on the bed smoothing my arm and talking to me gently, I can’t understand what she’s saying, they run an ECG my heart beat was very high but that was due to the panic attack I was having, everything appears normal. Sue suggested that Nathan could text Wendy the instructions for Paisley’s solution and check that she was ok. They gave me oromorph to calm me down, it helped a little, my breathing settled but my chest still hurt, one hour and a thousand years later they gave me more, this finally stopped the pain and I eventually relaxed. I couldn’t sleep as now that I was calm I could feel my uterus contracting so I just lay there watching my lifeless baby and wishing with all my might that things had turned out differently, wishing I was still pregnant and our baby was still alive.

I heard sue come back in a bit later but I had my back to the door and I didn’t have the mental capacity to interact with anyone so I just lay still, as if I was asleep. I didn’t realise at the time, she had come to say goodbye and introduce us to our new midwife.

My notes read that I was irrational and avoiding eye contact, they were very concerned about my mental health and wanted me to see a senior doctor. The poor state of my mental health is mentioned a few times and it is noted that I didn’t want to see my psychiatrist as he just wanted to put me on meds and I won’t take them. They had arranged for me to see the mental health midwife in the morning.

Trigger warning, this part contains images of a still born baby at 16 weeks gestation, I do not apologise for the content we are proud of our baby however I completely understand if you choose not to view the images.

It’s 20:15, we’ve established that I met Sue (my new midwife) during my previous pregnancy with Paisley, the contractions are getting so painful now I’m not sure how much longer I can do this without gas and air! I asked Sue to set it up for me just in case. At 20:20 I started what I didn’t realise was another 20 minute contraction, I caved about 10 minutes in and took 5 long draws on the gas and air, I desperately needed a wee. Sue asked me to push I was scared I would wee everywhere but I did it anyway, I pushed as hard as I could from my bum just like they tell you to, I thought my eyes were going to pop out of my head I was pushing so hard. Nothing happened so I pushed some more and still nothing, I told Sue I needed a wee but there was no way I could walk to the other room, this contraction wasn’t letting up! So the bought in the commode for me, she said “ok Emileen, when you can I want you to quickly pop yourself over to the commode” this was difficult as the contraction still wasn’t letting up. I remember saying to Nathan “this is the most undignified you’ll ever see me, if you still love me after this then you’ll love me forever!” And with that I stood up off the bed arse covered in blood and it running down both of my legs and I dumped myself on the commode. Nathan came and stood behind me to rub my shoulders. As I was about to wee there was this strange feeling, I pushed and there it was, our beautiful baby had entered this world at 20:39! I lifted myself up from the commode still hovering in a seated position, “he’s here” I said “Boris is here!” Sue quickly supported his lifeless body dangling from me. I looked down and fell in love! The most perfect, beautiful little baby just laid there in her hand! There was a look of sadness on the baby’s perfect face.

And these are the things Sue done to get us through this awful time, our baby was dead, but still she held its little body in one hand whilst she single handedly clamped the cord and cut it, the respect she showed our child in that moment will never be forgotten. She asked if we wanted to hold the baby, I did but I didn’t want to hold him to then have to put him down again to deliver the placenta so she tucked him up in his cot where we could see him and I again started to push. I felt something large and lumpy push through and into the bowl, “and there’s the placenta” I announced. I was wrong, as I lifted my body to have a look I saw the clipped cord still hanging from me. Sue pressed the emergency button, I was haemorrhaging, I could see the fear in her face and I suddenly felt very faint! “We just need to get you back on the bed Emileen” she said in a very calm voice and with that another midwife came rushing in. I lowered myself back onto the commode liquid still leaking from me, it’s ok this time I was having a wee, I had no control over it so we just waited for it to stop. “I think it’s stopped now” I said “it feels lumpy again” I lifted myself again and sure enough it was blood, I won’t lie, I knew my life was in danger and in that split second as I looked at my dead baby I considered pushing again, I couldn’t afford to lose much more blood, this way I could be with the baby, and then, Londyn and Paisley, how would they cope? I can’t miss them growing up, I need to be here to protect my beautiful girls, I’m sorry Boris – your sisters need me, I’ll have to wait to meet you properly. They moved me onto the bed and someone appeared with an injection “I’m just going to give you this injection to force your womb to contract, hopefully it will separate the placenta and the bleeding will stop” Sue explained “if that doesn’t work then we may have to go to theatre” she continued. With the fear of leaving Londyn and Paisley in my mind I started instructing Nathan as to what to do if I didn’t make it, “you must tell them I love them 8 everyday, make sure they know they are my world and they gave me the only true happiness I’ve ever known, make sure you and Gary sort something out with Londyn, she still needs to spend time with you and Paisley, don’t let the girls lose their relationship”
“Stop” Nathan said “you’re not going to die”
“I might” I said “I need you to take this seriously” with this conversation came the next 20 minute contraction, I’d done what I wanted to do, I’d given birth to the baby with only 5 puffs of gas and air, now I was having as much as I wanted. Again at about 10 minutes in once the bleeding had slowed Sue suggested I moved back onto the commode in the hope that gravity would help, I put down the gas and air and moved myself back onto the commode dripping blood as I went. Sure enough I felt the urge to push again, again it was just blood “it’s ok” Sue assured me “just take your time, relax and when I tell you we’ll push again” I sat there for a few minutes whilst Nathan rubbed my back. “Ok when you’re ready, I want you to give me a nice big push and I’ll pull the cord gently and we’ll see if we can get this done” Sue said so I lifted myself back up and Sue grabbed the cord, “ok push” she said, I pushed and there it was placenta delivered! I was so relieved, I got back onto the bed, they cleaned me up a bit and passed me my baby, my perfect sleeping beauty! We spent probably an hour in that room with our baby whilst the midwife’s sorted out all of the paperwork and suchlike. Then Sue came in and asked if we were ready to go back into the other room, I said yes, that I wanted to have a bath and I needed Nathan with me but I didn’t want to leave Boris on his own so would she be able to look after him for me, she took him off so she could weigh him and get some hand and footprints for us and we went to get cleaned up. I had a bath and whilst I was in the bath I delivered the rest of the placenta little bits had been left behind, this is very common in such an early delivery. I started packing everything up to make the room nice for when Boris got back, Nathan set up the sofa bed and he set up a space so that Boris’s cot could go next to me, just as we would have if he’d been alive. Suddenly I felt very wobbly and faint we called for someone to come and check on me, they said it was normal after what I’d been through and to have some food and a drink and try to relax. Sue came back with Boris and took some photos for us, she set up his cold cot and bought us some sandwiches with tea, I took Boris out of the cot and held him close, I kissed him and talked to him and told him how much I love him and how sorry I am that I couldn’t keep him safe and then I apologised for calling him a boy as we don’t actually know for sure what he is, looking at what’s there suggested he was a girl but that could be as simple as the boy bits hadn’t developed yet! We will find out for sure when we get the gender results back.

This night is far from over I will continue tomorrow as there is just too much to do it today and remembering it all is so painful.

So following on from my previous blog about how poorly I was treated at work last week I thought I would take this opportunity to write another little piece about my workplace.
So now (Thursday 14th March) I have to do my ‘back to work interview’ only 9 days after I actually went back to work.
This is already a bit of an issue as I didn’t have a chance to tell them how I was feeling before I was confronted by all the people I have to work with everyday.
I’m a bit uptight about it before I go into the office in which it is being held. A bit nervous about what kind of stupid questions I’m going to have to answer.
As I walk in and before I’ve even had the chance to sit down the inevitable question falls easily from her mouth.
“Hi Nathan, how are you doing?” I manage to restrain myself slightly and rather than saying “I’d be great if my daughter wasn’t dead and I didn’t have to do this stupid f***ing meeting” I felt those empty lies coming out of my mouth.
“I’m fine, ” I felt myself cringe slightly as those words fell out of my mouth, I’ve said them so much lately that it is just a bit of a habit now. “That’s good” is the response I received.
All the time I wanted to scream at her, ‘if you believe that then you are more stupid than you look’.
Awkward silence after awkward silence came and went as she rattled off a load of questions that I can’t remember.
I just wanted to get out of there.
They weren’t going to offer me any kind of support so what was the bloody point of these meetings.
2 text messages is all I received from my employers during my 2 months away from work, and those were only in response to texts that I had sent to them.

Then the clincher! The very reason I felt I needed to write this blog.

She sat forward in her chair and said “It has been bought to our attention that whilst you have been off you gave an interview to the press and that you have been in the newspapers. Do you think this was a wise idea?”

Now I have a life rule, men don’t hit women, EVER!

It makes me a bit uneasy to say it but she tested my rule almost to breaking point with those sentences. How dare she question me about this? About whether my daughter mattered enough to be spoken about to the media.

After I had gathered myself I calmly said to her “yes, and if everyone else disagrees with that then it says more about them than it does me”.

I couldn’t believe what I had just heard. This woman who has had nothing to do with our family, our pain, our grief up until this point is questioning me about whether I felt it was right to share our story as far and wide as possible just because I was off work.
A medical professional with years of training had determined that I wasn’t able to fulfil my role at work due to the amount of stress and anxiety I had been (and still am) suffering as a result of losing our beautiful daughter.

What made her think she had the right to question how we dealt with our grief?

She tried to save herself a little bit by saying “personally I haven’t seen it but people have been questioning whether you should have done that given the circumstances.”
Now I’m not sure what ‘circumstances’ she is referring to. I don’t like to read between the lines but I think the general jist of it was ‘your baby is dead, was it a good idea to talk about it with the media.’

At this point she tried to shut the interview down.
I thought this was probably the best time to make her feel as uneasy as possible about what she had just said to me.

So I questioned what she would have done in my situation. Would she have not said anything? Would she have just brushed it under the carpet and said nothing? Or would she have been trying to push for changes? Would she have tried to make as much noise as she could about babyloss and the devastating effects that it has on families who have suffered losses?

This seemed to be a bit of a turning point for the interview.
We sat for I don’t know how long talking about the fact that her mother had experienced a miscarriage at around 15 weeks during the 1960s and that she didn’t know what had happened to her baby. She gave birth to the baby and then it was taken away. She didn’t get to even hold her baby even for a minute.

We spoke about Nayely, about the options we were presented with at the hospital. I talked about that one precious night we got to spend with her at the hospital. How amazing all the staff at Musgrove Park Hospital were with us, not just with Emileen but with all of us. We talked about Nayelys funeral, the fact that we had her cremated and that she was now at home with us in a beautiful urn that was so kindly donated for our baby girl by a local funeral director, the fact that the hospital had provided us with a certificate with her date of birth on it and little prints of her tiny, delicate hands and feet.
All those little things that make us realise that our baby girl is recognised as a human being by more people than just ourselves even though she didn’t make it to the legal threshold of viability.
The interview drew to a natural conclusion, more so than the question and answer session it had started out as.
Although she said that as a company they couldn’t offer me anything more by way of support I do feel that my words made an impact with her which I hope in turn will be echoed around the company as a whole.

We started looking through the things in the cabinet to take my mind off the contractions, there was a beautiful memory box with loads of little keepsakes in it and the hospital even gave us a sibling memory box for Londyn. We took the bits we wanted but kept looking just for a distraction.

A few minutes later our midwife came back, she offered us lunch, we accepted though I can’t remember what it was. She said not to panic, that this would go on for hours yet and that I was probably more sensitive to the pain because of the circumstances. I disagreed, I’m very sensitive to medication and I felt I was much closer to giving birth than she thought. I was so scared, the baby is so tiny, what if I go wee and it just falls out??

We hung on in that room until 18:00 when I phoned Londyn. “Is Boris here?” She asked, I explained that it might take a while but I’d call her dad and let him know once he was here. She sounded disappointed, this worried me, how could she be excited when she knows he’s dead? Did she understand that he was dead?? I had a little chat with her about her day and what she had had for dinner, the usual stuff and then she asked if she could come up and see me, this really confused me, did she even realise I was in hospital?? “No baby I’m in hospital trying to have Boris” I said slightly concerned. “Oh I see” she replied “I thought they had sent you home until he comes” she explained and then she went on to ask about Paisley and who was looking after her. After we had finished our conversation I spoke to her dad to get his take on how she was coping, like me he thought it was strange how up beat she was but he said she definitely understands what’s happening and he believed she was up beat because she didn’t think she’d get to meet the baby and now she will. This is exactly what I was thinking but it helped to hear her dad say the same.

After I got off the phone we moved into the other room, the midwife kept offering me pain relief and I kept denying it. Nathan kept checking I was ok and asking if I needed anything, I don’t think he really knew what else to do.

19:00 the midwife came to give me my second quarter, this time she done it vaginally. It really hurt! Well the first quarter had worked so quickly and had had much more of an effect on me than they were expecting, with any luck this one will see the baby into the world.

Time ticked on and the contractions kept coming and I kept refusing pain relief. It hurt as anyone who has been in labour will tell you but it somehow was a manageable pain, I think that’s just a mind over matter thing I really wanted to do this without drugs so my mind just blocked out the pain. At 19:20 I had a massive contraction, it lasted 20 minutes and then, POP, something popped inside of me, the midwife checked and said there was nothing there but I felt it, something popped. And then the contractions started again, long and painful.

“I’m just going to do hand over” the midwife said, buzz if you need anything. This was at 19:50 she no sooner got out of the door and I buzzed her, “my waters have broken” I said. She checked and sure enough they had, she called in the other midwife (the one who was taking over from her) and they changed my pads. “That’s a lot of waters” I said, I could still feel it leaking, “yes you’re losing a bit of blood but it’s ok, it’s no more than we’d expect at this point”

They completed hand over in the corridor outside the room and then the first midwife came to say goodbye. I took a proper look at our new midwife, “how long have you worked here?” I asked, I think she said 8 years at this hospital, “I think I saw you when I was pregnant with Paisley, you told me my cervix was still firm like the end of a nose and it needed to be soft like lips and you gave us essential oils to help me relax” I said. She went and checked my notes, I was right, she’d seen me when I was pregnant with Paisley. Her name is Sue and she got us through the most painful experience of our lives…..

I’m going to leave it here for today, tomorrow will be the actual birth with photos of the baby, I feel I should warn you now so if you don’t want to see them you know to just scroll past the pictures.